Joseph was about to pass him and begin the ascent when the creature raised one of his hands and passed it over the boy’s shoulder. Joseph heard the long nails scraping on his coat—in a horrible second it seemed as if he could feel them on his skin. The perspiration broke out on his forehead.

“What do you want?”

“A little—little coin,” whispered the man.

Joseph handed him a piece of copper gladly.

“Good boy—good boy,” the other mumbled, “bless thee, bless thee. And when you have much that jingles remember Stas. Stas I am, and here I sleep.” He pointed at the door standing open on the lower floor, but Joseph’s eyes did not follow him. His attention was taken suddenly from Stas by a burst of flame that leaped like a live thing from the tiny window of the loft of the alchemist on the fourth floor. It was just a little flare—a small flame that issued through the opened shutter which the alchemist usually kept closed—it died down in a second or even less, but for that instant it lighted up the whole court and the surrounding buildings.

“Hey,” said the man, pointing upward—“there they have magic that takes a soul away from a body. . . . See”—there was another flash brighter than the first and longer continued—“there be devils that come to earth with the fire of hell upon them. . . . Their servant is the alchemist, Kreutz, and they have one among us here on earth that is more like them than like us. . . . You know whom I mean?” He swung the lantern close to Joseph’s face, the boy recoiling fearfully. “The student Tring! He it is that would deal with the devil and give him his soul. Have I not heard him at night as he lay awake in his room on the farther side of the court, mumbling and calling and singing? He it is who is the curse of this house. . . . Well, I must sleep. A good night to you.” And he went in through the open door.

CHAPTER VII
IN THE ALCHEMIST’S LOFT

Joseph found himself too sleepy when he was inside his tiny bedroom to give any further attention either to the flashes of light from the loft above or to the mysterious grumblings of Stas. And the beginning of his studies at the Collegium Minus on the following day, drove, for the time being, all matters of lesser importance from his mind. There was an evening a week or more later, however, when the incident recurred to him. He had accompanied his father as was his custom to the tower, and, returning early, had paused for a moment on the landing outside his door before entering the house. The night was fine and he peered contentedly about over the star-lit roofs, the red chimneys, and the black walls. Down below him Wolf started uneasily in his sleep as if he were dreaming of evil things. From the little window of the room beside the door of his own dwelling there was thrown upon the darkness a faint glimmer from a lamp which signified that his mother was sitting up, perhaps with Elzbietka, who had said earlier in the day that she would come down that evening.

He fell to musing in the sweet calm of the night as young people will do, and in his musing wondered mightily what might be the importance which his father had attached to the treasure which he had brought to Krakow. It might be a gem worth thousands and thousands of gold zloty—it might be merely a fashioned piece of glass of value only to the tradesmen who worked in glass. But then why had it made the impression that it had upon Jan Kanty, and why was the bold stranger so eager to gain possession of it? And why in such a peaceful world must names be changed and goings and comings veiled in a mantle of night? Why——

Flash I Into the night suddenly leaped the same brilliance that had startled him on that earlier evening when he had been alone in the court with Stas. Only, immediately following it now, here came a cry of someone in fright or pain.